


Meant to Be

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Afire Love [7]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: F/M, Insecurity, Jealousy, M/M, Mission Fic, Q goes on mission, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, just a little though, so many communications issues it's ridiculous, the new 007 is an ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"007, so help me, if you blow up that consulate, I will rend you limb from bloody limb." Q growled, and James's full attention snapped up. Q had pushed into his office to grab a small device, and he obviously wasn't talking to James. </p><p>James had known, as they'd all known, that when he was gone, his number would not be retired. MI6 had no room for that kind of sentimentality. </p><p>Of course, that meant that the tattoo on Q's chest, of a heart stamped with his number, belonged to someone new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Deathless Death

Officially, James Bond had retired from service as 007, MI6's greatest agent to ever live. 

Unofficially, James was idly wondering why the hell he'd seen more of MI6 since retiring than he ever had while he was on active duty; but he wasn't left to question it for long. His husband was standing in the midst of chaos, orchestrating explosions and gunfire around the world into a symphony that would crescendo into a brief time of peace until the new day began, and new bad men found new ways in which to be bad. The Quartermaster was categorically why James had made himself something of a 'nest', as the minions had taken to calling it, in Q's office, spending a neverending number of hours there, waiting for Q to really be ready to leave work. 

They were meant to be going to dinner, but as the reservations ticked past, James sighed, totally uncaring about the change in plans, but still bemusedly unsurprised in what was in no way a shocking turn of events. James took out his phone, calling the restaurant and placing an order for take-out, sending a quick text to Alec to get him to pick it up and deliver it. James settled back against the couch, watching his lover through half-lidded eyes while he simply relaxed. 

"007, so help me, if you blow up that consulate, I will rend you limb from bloody limb." Q growled, and James's full attention snapped up. Q had pushed into his office to grab a small device, and he obviously wasn't talking to James. 

James had known, as they'd all known, that when he was gone, his number would not be retired. MI6 had no room for that kind of sentimentality. 

Of course, that meant that the tattoo on Q's chest, of a heart stamped with his number, belonged to someone new. 

Q turned, seeing Bond finally and a look of utter apology pulled at his features as he raised up his hand between the bluetooth and his mouth, "James, fuck, I'm sorry--" 

"Take care of the explosives, Q; I'll handle dinner." James replied simply, smiling at him. Q gave him an odd look, circling close and bending to kiss him with a sweetness they rarely indulged in. "Tell the new me that if they cause you a grey hair before I do, I'll kick their arse." 

Q snorted at that, narrowing his eyes, "I'd actually quite like to see you kick his arse, James. He's being a right git." The other end of the comm said something and Q rolled his eyes, "Yes, 007, your predecessor was also a right git, but he was a right git that made it up to me. You have no way of doing that whatsoever, so _don't bloody make it necessary_." 

James chuckled, kissing Q's hand for the moment he allowed himself before letting go. Q's fingers brushed over his cheek, and James leaned into the touch, staring up at the softness that had taken over his lover's green-hazel eyes. Q stole another kiss before he ran back to join the fray, and James resolved to take Q home that night and prove to himself that Q was his and his alone, no matter who fell into his codename. Edmund and Susan, two of Q-Branch's Swarm of semi-sentient robotic vacuum cleaners came careening into Q's office playing tag with each other. James smiled to himself, thinking of bringing home some balloons for their own, Win. Filling the damn things with helium and letting Win chase them across the ceiling had diverted Q and James through James's long and arduous introduction to retirement. 

Once James had gone to get Q back, he'd been coerced into agreeing to the surgery necessary to replace his shoulder--the surgeries to his knees having happened before he had mind enough to try to fight back. James didn't remember the apparent madness that had taken over him after he'd been rescued by Q and Alec Trevelyan from a torture situation he was meant to left for dead on. He'd spent most of his recovery blissfully sedated because of it, though; that much he did know. 

His feet had been broken to the point where had he not been found sooner, they would no longer have resembled feet; his fingers dislocated or shattered altogether; and his shoulders and knees had been shot out. Q had learned how to give massages in order to better try to rehabilitate James's joints. James had teased Q about the reversal of roles at first; but when the colder months came, and James woke up some mornings unable to get his hand to grip a damn thing, he could've cried for how grateful he was for Q's clever, strong fingers. His left knee ached most when it rained, and Q had built him a cane he'd long-wanted; something Jasmine had once admitted to picturing him with; switching between a cane and a scythe with little more than a twist of the handle. Q'd broken him down into carrying it; the pain was something he would've forced himself to cope with when he was younger; now the pain wasn't just his own--Q suffered if he suffered, and that was about the only thing that could be cited as a reason for James to succumb to something so close to a weakness. 

When Q finally let himself fall back through the door to his office; all loose limbs and achingly tired expression, James wanted nothing more than to wrap him in his arms and refuse to let go. Laying out a proper picnic for them, James offered his open arms to the wraith of a man, groaning into Q's hair as he let himself drape over James almost bonelessly. 

"Why did you have to be such a fucking pain? Now they all think they can do it. I'm going to have to make his life _hell_. I'm supposed to be making his life easier." 

James tucked his hand in Q's hair, the one that was broken, the one that wouldn't grip things on cold mornings. Lifting Q's mop of hair, James pressed kisses just under his hairline. "I can make his life hell enough for you, Q." 

Q shook his head, burying his nose in the broad shoulder closest to his face. "I have to, or they'll never fucking respect me." He groaned resignedly. "Just...tell me that I'm terrifying and you have the utmost consideration for my wrath." 

James burst into something dangerously close to giggles, but he nodded, "I respect you greatly and know that you could've killed me even on the best of my days." 

"I love you." Q laughed wearily, leaning into him and pressing kisses to the side of his face he could reach. James caught his chin, pulling their mouths together. "You have no idea, James. At this rate, I have to fucking go into the field." 

James's arms went to stone around him, " _No_." James growled, his blue eyes no less dangerous and his training no less evident than it had always been. James hadn't let himself lapse in retirement; if Q was occupied, James would indulge in training sessions that would last until he physically couldn't stand. It made Q's tension all the more acute in response to the threat inherent in his body language. "The only way you go into the field is with me." 

Q curled his fingers around his jaw, kissing him long and deep, until they were melting into each other with a laziness that made James want nothing more than their bed and the man wrapped around him. 

"Unfortunately, gentlemen..." Eve Moneypenny interrupted, lips pursed and brow cocked, "that is precisely what MI6 has come to require." 

James rose around Q like an angry predator protecting its mate, "You bloody well _do not_." 

"I'm sorry, James. Don't you think that if there were _any_ other way, I would have made that first choice? Your retirement and Q's continued safety are two of the things I hold damn near sacred, but I'm afraid it's come to be that England needs to call both into question." 

"I'm all but useless to you, Eve: what the hell--" 

"There have been whispers in the espionage community that you left MI6 to go rogue, James. We need to capitalize on that." 

James looked at her, "You couldn't say that I'm not the man I once was; it would have left an open invitation to anyone looking to try to kill me. So you let the rumour I'd gone dark spread." 

"Quite." Eve agreed simply. "It was either that, or risk reprisals from anyone who's held a grudge and survived this long." 

James nodded once, "And what would my going rogue help Queen and country with?" 

"There's a player who wants the best. You're better than them all, so, to put it simply: infiltrate, and make it so that James Bond is England's number-one most wanted villain." 

"And the role Q plays?" 

"You and Q were hardly subtle. I intend on sending him out with the new 007; on making your cover more solid by creating the illusion that your one tie to England is going to be severed." 

James was quiet for a long time, and Q knew why in his heart, even if the thought made bile rise in the back of his throat. "I will not cheat on my husband, Eve--" 

James stiffened around him, and Q wanted to scream for how angry he was. 

"No. I will not risk James's life and our marriage..." Q's words died in his throat, because while they loved each other with a depth that put the Mariana's Trench to shame, he knew that neither of them would ever be capable of denying something from England when her safety was called into question.

"I'm not in top form. I can barely shoot." 

"You're an ex-MI6 agent and the Quartermaster's lover." Eve rejoined, "For your information alone, he will want you." 

James took a deep breath, looking to Q, who was staring fixedly at Eve, "When do you need an answer?" 

"Not until 007 is back in country." Eve replied, excusing herself from the visit they both knew was a courtesy more than it was an actual choice given. They had two, maybe three days, then. James nodded to her, not looking away from Q's profile. 

"No." Q warbled. "This...No. There has to be...We almost had him. I can find..." 

James turned Q's chin with gentle fingers on his jaw, kissing him silent for a long moment, until the panic that was working itself up in Q's system was diverted from blooming into a full-on panic attack. James hummed as Q let out a small, desperate and broken sound into his mouth, Q's arms going around James like he was scared James would disappear. 

"I knew we should have run." James burst out laughing at Q's speculative musing, and the tension broke from James's body. 

"I can do this, but I won't do it unless you're alright." James murmured, "Maybe we can leverage this as a favour and get you a two-month leave for the honeymoon." 

Q snorted, "James, it wasn't that the job was making me say no to the two-months in paradise in bed with you; it's that after two whole months in bed in paradise with you, I wouldn't want to fucking come back." 

James grinned at him, sitting back on the couch and pulling Q forward on top of him, his arms coming to rest folded behind Q's lower back, the man straddling his lap with an easy smile of indulgence and pleasure. 

"Tell Alec this is your bachelor's party, will you? One last romp, so I actually get you down the aisle without stitches, casts, or a painkiller of any variety?" 

James laughed deep in his throat, his lashes a halo against his cheeks, "Darling, if you think for one second that would deter Alec from drugging me, throwing me in the boot of his car, and managing to get us from London to Thailand to Vegas without my sobering up, you're sadly mistaken." 

Q narrowed his eyes, "You sound as though this has had thought put into it." 

"Not thought, love: this is Alec we're talking about." James replied warmly, coaxing Q into a kiss even though Q's instincts were not to trust wherever their conversation was leaving them. 

"You're not getting drugged and kidnapped to go have a lap dance, James." 

"It's not me that would be going for a lap dance, my darling Q. I get enough dancing at home with you." James was mumbling the last into the curve of Q's throat, littering attention over the curves of his tendons and pressing hard kisses where he fully intended to leave lovebites later. "Besides, I have danced with many people, and _no one_ moves quite like you do." 

Q giggled lightly, sighing as he took in James's scent, eyes closed blissfully. 

"Besides, if Alec kidnaps me, either Eve's complicit or she's kidnapping you." 

Q let out a startled laugh, "I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right." Leaning forward and tucking his face down against James's neck, Q melted into the embrace. "I don't want to even bloody think about what Eve would do with me. Even more alarming is the notion that Jasmine may help her." 

"Would it comfort you at all to know that I'd pay the ransom to get you back?" James offered. 

Q extracted himself from the warm comfort to look at James with furrowed brows, "No, you wouldn't. You'd make a play that you were going to, kill everyone at the drop, whether it was a dead-drop or not, and then track me down and throttle whoever'd taken me within an inch of their lives." 

James smiled against Q's lips, "Mmm, you make it sound romantic."


	2. Bloody and Raw But I Swear It's Sweet

Catching sight of the new 007 made James wonder if he'd gone mad. Tall, blond, tan, and handsome in a way that might not have been traditional, but was still somehow classic all the same, it was as if James had turned back thirty years of pain and battle. But when Q laughed at something the bastard said, James felt the old dragon within him roar in territorial ire. 

Q turned to look at James, still smiling brightly. "James, this is Charles Martley, the new 007. Martley, this is James Bond; the only 007-designation that's ever survived to retirement." 

Though Q had said it with pride, James almost felt ashamed when the pup looked at him with an appraising glint in his eye, and James knew that with that one point, James would be found wanting. He took the offered hand, doing an assessment of his own. Charles Martley wore a suit with just a slight pinstripe, the detailing a near-black red that would almost be imperceptible, but managed to emphasize the drape of the cut from the width of his shoulders to the tuck of his waist. His hands were softer than James's had been before he'd stopped shooting the Walther. That Q had spent an entire week designing something for him alone that he would be able to withstand the kick of on his shoulders was something he never wanted the pup to know, if only to ensure that the bastard didn't think to ask for the same kind of treatment. 

"The Quartermaster was just telling me about the komodo dragon that ate one of your guns. I had a run-in with an alligator while I was in Louisiana for a uni break--" 

James glanced at Q from the corner of his eye, seeing the wear Q let himself project while he could take advantage of the pup looking away. He looked just about as interested as James felt, and James made a mental note to reward him for it later. 

"...anyway, we managed to get the on-board motor started just as the damn thing's jaws were closing!" Q affected a look of amusement and appreciation that James felt no compunction to mirror for the pup's benefit. 

"Mr. Martley, if I could have a word with Q--" 

"I was rather hoping you'd slip up and tell me his name! Ah, well. Maybe another time. I'm sure the lovely J will have something for me..." 

As the tosser left, James turned a raised brow on his lover. "J?" 

"Jasmine. He hasn't earned the right to call her by name yet." 

"She doesn't even have that title formally." 

"Absolutely correct, but she intends on making him work harder than any other double-oh to prove himself, because she adores you and feels that making your replacement's life a living hell would be something that would show you homage." 

"It does, I utterly approve; remind me to send her enough orchids to overflow her flat." James replied rapidly, staring at Martley's back as he oozed charm at a Jasmine perhaps even more unimpressed than James or Q. "Is anyone welcoming of him?" 

"Alec, but I think that might be because he intends on doing something sinister." Q moved around his desk, sighing. "I can't fucking outfit you, I can't let anything seem like it's MI6-issue--" 

"Q." James called him quietly, meeting his gaze, "You've given me everything I need." 

Q had anxious tears in his eyes as he strode around the desk, throwing himself into James's arms and tucking his face against James's chest. "I...I wanted to have a tracker ready. Something that's ingestible, that stays in your system once it's absorbed into your bloodstream, but I haven't been able to make it totally non-toxic yet..." James brushed his thumbs under Q's eyes gently. 

"It's okay, Q. This isn't the first time I've been in a drop where I'm on my own. If you'll recall, before you; I rather preferred it." 

"I have always had a way to find you, though." Q whispered. "I've always been able to watch over you." 

James kissed him softly, "Don't run away with the young tosser, will you?" 

"James, I thought you'd realize by now that I prefer older models: more experience." Q grinned around the teasing, pressing into James's chest luxuriously. "You should really kiss me, James. Give the whelp a show." 

James secured an arm around Q's waist, half-dipping him and pressing his mouth slowly and thoroughly into action, using every bit of knowledge in his arsenal to leave Q a trembling, whimpering mess against his chest. "Should I give an encore, or would you like to save that for a later performance?" 

Q looked up at him from under heavy lids, his mouth red and swollen, slack as he caught his breath, "I want you to kiss me again so badly I feel like I'm about to fall apart, but if you kiss me again, I'll end up rutting against your leg while I'm on my knees sucking you off." 

James groaned at the light, dazed voice of his Quartermaster, chasing the taste of Q's mouth off his lips with his tongue, "Not bad for an old man, then." It wasn't a question, but Q was shaking his head that it wasn't bad at all anyway. 

James smirked, stealing another soft press of lips before letting Q take his own weight again, the undsteadiness of his legs gratifying. James pressed a kiss to his curls, smiling over Q's shoulder to Jasmine as she craned around Martley to see what the hell he'd been staring at, her little finger-wave the only thing to snap the other man out of staring at James with a look like thunder. 

"If you can stand to be in the line of fire again, I'll go rescue Jasmine." 

"You mean that if I can stand at all under my own power after a kiss like that one." Q remarked, smile wide and dopey. "I can manage. Go save our favourite minion from the double-oh that hasn't quite been broken in yet." 

James chuckled, stalking away from Q like a barely-tamed tiger obeying his owner. Q was thankful for the pale cast of the screens on his face, because it was burning. The new 007 was his exit strategy once all was said and done: Martley would fake Bond's death before taking out the rest of the organization. But if James for one second trusted him to fake it, he'd have lost his bloody mind. James smiled at the youth he was entrusting both himself and Q to, his blue eyes taking on the glint of impending demise as he backed Martley into a corner by sheer presence, his hulking figure filling the room as the click of keys petered out in stupefaction so that everyone in the room could watch. James took the lapels of the little bugger's suit in his fists, jerking him upright and forward, managing to tower over him through sheer force of will. 

"Charles," James purred, the tone too-familiar, enough that it would have made James's skin crawl years ago, "if you labour under the assumption that I will let _anything_ that befalls Q--including my death--go without drawing blood in return, you'd best to put in the transfer to HR now. I have come back from the dead more times than I'd care to be mentioned, and if anything happens to Q on your watch, death won't so much as slow me down." 

Tweaking the boy's cuffs so that the suit draped without a wrinkle, James quirked a smile at him, turning and walking back to Jasmine, chucking her on the chin before he walked on, catching up Q's Scrabble mug with a silent question to the boffin that he already knew the answer to: going to make his lover a cup of tea. 

Charles seemed disgracefully off-balance as he stumbled back to Q's desk. "And, Mr. Martley? If James does die in any way, I will kill you. Slowly. And with no end of agony, humiliation, or torment. Am I understood?" Q glanced away from his screen only with the last, his brows raising when he wasn't immediately replied to. 

"Y-Yes..." 

Q let a smile that would have had anyone even partially sane peeing themselves for fear. Q sniffed, rubbing at his forehead and cracking his neck with a simple tilt of the head, splaying his long, elegant fingers over the keys before he started conducting his madness. "Good. Dismissed." 

James returned to have a kiss as a reward for the perfectly-brewed tea, settling in beside Jasmine with a prototype switchblade that looked like a computer stylus, flicking the blade over and around his fingers, twirling it easily. "I don't like him." Jasmine muttered angrily, "Worse than fucking 008, and that bastard flirts with Q and Eve. This one--" 

"Jasmine, dear, I appreciate the protective urge, but Alec and I will make damned sure he learns before too long." James murmured smoothly, looking at her with a warmth it would've been hard to say belonged in James Bond's repertoire. James curled his large, blunt hand around her deceptively thin forearm, reading her pulse even as she sighed unhappily, pouting. "Now for the real question, though, darling one: do you want him to stop flirting with you, too?" 

Jasmine hissed at him like a sodden cat, and James chuckled like the elder brother no one wanted until they had him. 

Giggling to himself, Q ducked behind his screens, concentrating on getting Alec out of his latest mess in order to try to have someone other than the new 007 at his and James's backs. It would be unsanctioned, but he was a department head, and if he pressed it, the entire operation could just as easily never happen. Requesting an extra set of hands wasn't too much to ask at all. Especially if 007 didn't know that he was being watched by the senior agent. 

Q narrowed his eyes, musing at the thought of what James would have done to him if he'd ever even considered doing to him what he was about to do to the newer model, and Q couldn't suppress a sigh of disappointment in Martley. He had so far to come yet, and Q was beginning to wonder already if he'd never get there.


	3. Next To Me

The raid was something that had been planned since the start: this was how James Bond would be exfiltrated from the enemy ranks, and Q would come into play to steal whatever secrets he could lay hands on while the flash and burn of the fight went on around them. 

In the three months that he'd been deep undercover, James had caught glimpses of his lover on the arm of a younger model; he'd withstood hearing the slander thrown at the man he adored more than life; he'd passed every test there was for them to throw at him. 

However, James had never wanted to face this one. 

Martley was dead. He'd been dead for most of the firefight. And while James knew that it was Alec keeping the rouse alive, he had to pretend as though he didn't; feigning ignorance of which agent could possibly be trying to rain hell down against them. James couldn't get out of this on his own. He'd seen too much to labour under the belief that with his injuries he'd make it out alive, let alone in one piece.

Hope was always a horrible emotion, James reflected almost detachedly. Hope held when all else usually fell. Putting hope on something beyond all reach of control was something so foolish it was nearly impossible. James Bond knew that he'd been slaving to hope, however; the moment Q was frog-walked into the room, a bag over his head and that posh mouth spewing hate the moment it was torn off. 

He'd had hope that he could make it out of this. That they both would. 

He was told that this was his chance to kill the little fucker who'd sent him rogue: the lover that had betrayed him into betraying Queen and country. 

James Bond's arm was screaming as he leveled the gun to aim just past Q's head; the kick he'd been subjecting himself to wreaking havoc on his shoulder. 

He stared into the green eyes of his lover, and had to keep his face, his gaze, blank. 

"Fucking shoot me, you impotent bastard," Q spat, and James could hear the meaning under the words; James had to take the shot, because Q did not plan on going out to anyone else's gun, and there was no way for them to get out of this without at least him dying. If James didn't shoot, cover was blown, and they lost all chance. 

James swallowed down bile. He swallowed down a scream that felt like glass; tasted like blood. 

Q was so determined under his gaze; so sure and steadfast. James pulled the trigger and wanted to be sick. But he made himself smile cruelly; playing the part lest he give the rouse of his loyalty away. James watched as they dragged Q upright just to make sure he was dead,the heavy tack of blood on his pale skin making the urge to puke even stronger. 

Q's body was unceremoniously dropped, and James forced himself to walk away with the "winning" team, his head spinning and his grip on reality more strained than it'd felt even when he'd gone mad. 

What James was unaware of was that he'd aimed true when he'd tried to shoot just shy of the man he loved. The second shot, the one that had made its mark, had come from Alec; a synthetic blood mixed with a neurotoxin that would allow them to check for a pulse and find none. Alec crept over to Q, slinging his limp arm over his shoulder and lifting with a low grunt, the boffin a little heavier than expected. Q would be out for three hours at the most, and Alec just had to be thankful that they hadn't tried to take Q's body for some sort of trophy over MI6. "Okay, wiz kid; we need to figure out an exfiltration." Alec grunted to the unconscious man he was maneovering out of the bed and breakfast they'd all-but torn apart in the assault. "Before our dearest knob-end decides that forcing him to kill you was a step too far." 

~

"Eve, it's all gone tits." Alec sighed, watching the boffin out of the corner of his eye and feeling like one of the fairies keeping watch over Sleeping Beauty. 

_"Alec fucking Trevelyan, what the_ fucking hell _are you doing there?!"_

"Oh, darling: were you worried when I was labeled MIA?" Alec purred. "I'm with James and Q: only James is still undercover; the kid you sent to keep Q safe and get James out is dead; and while Q does make a lovely Disney princess, James is gonna kill me for bruising him."

_"Martley is dead?"_

"Yes, dear: and not Bond-dead, either; I checked." 

_"The body?"_

"In the morgue. I have an old friend from Russia who's making it disappear. He had no family, correct?"

 _"Correct,"_ Eve sounded resigned to the point of pain, and Alec was forced to bite back a laugh, _"Is Q safe?"_

"As houses, Eve. He's sleeping like a babe. Or, well, he's feigning death like a possum." Snorting to himself, Alec looked at Q, noting the slow uptick in both breathing and pulse, registered on a small monitor Q had outfitted him with for this express eventuality. It looked like little more than a watch, transmitting the data to a tablet he could fit in his pocket. "We need to find a way to contact Bond. Preferably before he slaughters half the city. I hate to say it, but I believe it might have escaped his notice that it wasn't his shot that took down the Quartermaster."

Eve was silent for a long while, and Alec knew the exact thoughts running through her head; he'd been there not an hour before. _"I take it Q's apparent death means that James doesn't see a way out."_

"I'm not worried about the numbers, or the strength of these bastards, Eve: that's nothing compared to the bit you haven't gotten to yet."

_"How long will it be before he decides the numbers and his own survival don't matter..."_

"Gotta hand it to the boffin, I don't know how he's changed James, but the stupid bastard respects his wishes enough to make himself survive, even at a cost of his misery."

Alec glanced at the bed, knowing that, really, both he and Q knew that James wasn't that selfish. He was selfless enough to do whatever he had to to get the best of the situation. And the old tiger waiting to die had decided it wasn't his time to die after all; not when it wouldn't do a lick of good for anyone to lose the prey he'd already been circling. 

James liked to think himself selfish; being selfish allowed him the novelty of avoiding the things that ought not to be asked of anyone; the things too bloody often asked of the selfless. Q made no bones about his selflessness, but with James to threaten consequence should he be truly taken advantage of, he was safe enough not to have to hide. 

_"Alec, Jasmine has found a sub-frequency channel that their communications tech runs on. We can't break through and we can't pinpoint where individual operatives are..."_

"James doesn't remove his ear pieces. He stopped doing that after he brought Q back. Jasmine, you need to brilliant for me now: I need you to compose a message from Q to James, in Morse, and interrupt the frequency with it."

_"You mean...you want Jasmine to try to get into Q's head enough to know what he'd tell James to make him trust that he was back? Alec...that's sweet, darling, but insane. James would never--"_

"James fell in love with a ghost in the wires, Eve. Just...trust me on this one. James will hear it. He'll know."

Across the world, Eve bit her lip, sighing as she straightened her suit into the perfectly straight lines befitting of a head of MI6. She knew as well as Alec did that James had fallen for a ghost in the wires. She'd been in the country for it, unlike 006.

She knew why it felt wrong; knew it from the girl who'd sat through her Literature classes to the woman who could very well have the world at her fingertips. This was too sloppy; too much like the Priest's plan to send word to Romeo that Juliet wasn's really dead. There was too much on the line between them and victory; true love and lives that Eve couldn't bring herself to be ready to lose, no matter the heartlessness their M, the real M, had always exuded. Eve sighed, passing a hand through her hair as she sat back, looking over at Jasmine with a silent plea to make sure her heart wasn't going to break. 

"It'll be okay; boss and Bond are too cute to die." Jasmine muttered to her, patting her knee absently as her hands flashed over the keys too fast to keep up with. "Just let me see how far down the rabbit hole I can get in the Wonderland that is the boss's head, then we'll just have to pray." 

Eve bit her lip, sighing to herself as she sat back in her chair. "Do it. Bring our idiots home."

Eve let herself into Q's office with her own personal override codes, and the preset video started to play; Q and Eve dancing at her ex's wedding, a time that made her feel less alone no matter how alone she was threatened into feeling. Win whirred, emerging out from under the couch James and Alec had carried into Q's office themselves; a replacement for the uncomfortable cot Q had been sleeping on whenever he was too far gone to go home without James. 

Sitting heavily down, Eve stroked the robotic vacuum as if it were a cat. "Your fathers give me a stress ulcer all on their own, little love." 

"I was adorable once. Young and full of hope. Now, look at me. I'm a short, fat, insecure, middle aged thing!" Win chirped at her, and Eve snorted as his voice modulator brought out the reply in a perfect imitation of the second half of the conversation he was quoting, "I made you short?"

"I won't take that personally, now, shall I? That whole insecure, fat, and old bit?" 

Looking up at the familiar footage, Eve let herself smile, if only a little. She shook her hair back, sighing to herself as she settled there. 

"Who can we spare?" She muttered, pulling up the information on her tablet, accessing the files of what double-ohs were where, a running calculation in her head of whether there was a field agent that would like to take a step closer to being a double-oh. 

Sighing deeply, Eve looked up at the footage, licking her lips as she settled back with her phone and the information to rule the world at her fingertips. She would have loved Q in another life. But in this one; it was so much more important to make sure that he got the man he needed out alive.


	4. Got a Heavy Love

Dawn broke on a man too broken to continue. 

James Bond stared into the sun, thinking that it wasn't as beautiful without Q. James swallowed and tore his eyes away, to the gun laying beside him on the bed that he hadn't slept in. For as long as he could keep his eyes open, he wouldn't see Q's blood-spattered face. 

He should have known that there would be no happy ending for him. Happy endings were simply stories that hadn't finished yet: his type wasn't one to retire, and nor were they the type to deserve the shade of happiness Q had shone upon him. James looked at his left hand; the slightly misshapen appendage that Q had taken up in his long, clever fingers any time he could. Once upon a time, he would have wrought the destruction required to kill the cartel once and for all. When he was young and whole and without a pain only Q seemed to be capable of driving away. Now, though, he wasn't sure that he could, even taking his survival out of the equation. 

Killing himself felt like the coward's way out; a betrayal of Q, in a way. But Q hadn't known the pain James was in every moment they were apart. Q had filled the spaces that Bond's injuries had left in his life. And now James was forced to face his life without his body, his heart, or his hope. James fancied Q might understand. 

James just had to make sure that the job got done, with or without him living through it. 

His earpiece was giving off static, and James loathed that more than seeing the sunrise on a world without Q in it--but then there was a gap of total silence, before the static started again. 

James's mind kicked on; more used to using Morse to talk to Q than hearing Morse used to talk to him. James wrote down the letters when the message didn't compute, and he still couldn't believe it. 

'My man much missed, how you call to me, call to me, saying that now you are not as you were  
When you had changed from the one who was all to me, but as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, standing as when I drew near to the town where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then, even to the original air-blue gown! Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness travelling across the wet mead to me here, you being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness, heard no more again far or near? Thus I; faltering forward, leaves around me falling, wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward, and this young man calling.' 

James let a ghost of a smile grace his lips, thinking of the friends in England that would be praying for Q to come home, too. The people that had loved them both. 'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, silence the pianos and with muffled drum bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest, my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; for nothing now can ever come to any good.' Q had read it to him, it seemed like a lifetime ago. It was the eulogy they'd both agreed to. The only words they wanted spoken, because there was no other way to express the desire to stop the world; to stop good days because how dare the weather be bright when a life you'd loved was lost? 'You are not Q. But thanks for the sentiment.' He tapped out in reply against the ear piece. He took a deep breath as if it would be his last, taking out the ear piece and standing to the day. It would be a bloody one, and he was never the kind to laze about when he could be in the thick of fire. 

James picked up the gun that he technically should not have brought with him. The one Q had painstakingly built. The one with the least amount of kick possible; the one that would respond only to James or Q. 

He hadn't shot Q with this gun. That one was tucked in a holster at James's waist, waiting to put a bullet between the eyes of the man who caused this charade to begin. James closed the door of the hotel room he'd gotten himself for the night. He knew that he wouldn't return, leaving the young single mother that had been the maid to his rooms a generous tip and a note that would make its way to the ones who still mattered in the world. James was a dead man, more than he had been even walking into the British Museum, sitting in front of a Turner piece waiting for a man he'd yet to meet; yet to fall for; yet to hang his whole world on. He knew how grey he'd looked that day. How old and tired he'd been. Even more old and tired than he was walking towards the certain doom of a cartel that would see MI6 slaughtered. On James's left hand, on his ring finger--a finger that had been smashed, like all the others--sat a white-ink tattoo of the Sun. The only ring he'd allowed himself, the first time he and Q had agreed to forever. 

Asking him to marry him had seemed so important, James mused as he took out the first guard, walking into the offensive attacks of another three. But Q had 007 tattooed to his bursting heart, and James had Q's mark on his finger; there was no more way for them to be claimed, and maybe that had been the point. 

Ducking, James broke bone and listened to death gurgles, feeling nothing as he walked on over corpses. His mind turned to their house, and the hoodie he couldn't help but wish he was wearing: An article of clothing that, once upon a time, James Bond would not have been caught dead in. An article of clothing that Q had always called his armour, because it had seen the dark things in Q's life, and had helped him to make it out alive. James wondered if Q might've had better luck had he been wearing that hoodie: if the kid that had replaced him hadn't been such a self-absorbed arse as to have missed the tell of a beautiful woman luring him away. James shot down three more men before he was out of ammo in the gun Q had made him, but James didn't drop it, as he might once have done. He holstered the weapon and used the only other ones at his disposal; the cane he was being supported by revealing its blade too late for its prey to see what was flaying him in half. James side-stepped a wild try with a knife that looked more for decoration than for use, kicking out a dress shoe-clad foot to kick out the man's knees, driving him hard to the floor with James's cane making one single strike through his forehead, hard enough to crack skull and kill. 

There were more running towards him, and James turned to face them, folding his hands on top of the head of his cane, a smile playing on his lips as he simply waited. 

James had always assumed the world would end in ice. When Q shuddered into his arms of a morning, and James could chase away a chill, it was hard to see how fire would do the job when someone so vital needed its warmth. 

In the ice of his eyes, or the cold curl of Q's fingers, the world had always been fated to end. So James would make it end.


	5. Who Will Comfort Me?

It all had come down to timing, really. 

James had waited for his certain doom only to have it intercepted by a rather unimpressed 006. "C'mon, you bloody tit, or are you feeling too old and frail to move?" 

"Alec, just go." James urged his oldest friend. "Eve would find a way to bring me back just to kill me again, slower if I get you killed here, too." 

"Look, you enormous git: Q isn't dead. You didn't shoot him." Alec grabbed the front of James's jacket, yanking him forward bodily to shove a small, flesh-coloured ear piece in place. 

_"James?"_

"This isn't possible. I don't get this many chances--" 

"James, you shot over Q's shoulder. He's not going to be attending any concerts any time soon, but he's fine. It was my shot, just at the right moment, same time yours rang out. And mine was nothing more than a glorified paintball full of a neurotoxin and fake blood. Q called me for this eventuality. He knew that there was a chance you'd have to pull the trigger with him on the end of the barrel. He gambled that you would mess the shot, but the little shit is still alive and...well, not really well, he's got an inner ear thing right now because it was so loud, but he'll be fine with drugs and a few days."

_"James, please. Please survive this. Come back to me. I am alive."_

"Verify." The word was out of James's mouth because if he let himself hope even a little, he didn't know what would happen when hope was lost.

_"You buried my shame in the depth of the sea and cast my fears to the bed of the ocean. You carried my hopes to the end of the earth and enriched my pride with the fruits of love. As far as the east is from the west, you removed past guilt from my mind. As far as the heaven is from the earth, you sever shame from the contents of my thoughts. As you build up my faith, mountain high, you deeply warm my heart with a wondrous smile. And now, being crowned in the comfort of your love, you make me rollick in the safety of your arms."_

"No, they tried--" 

_"You once said that no one had a voice like mine; therefore it couldn't be a trick. Those were my worst days, James. When you were there, but I couldn't touch you."_

James broke, relief and love flooding him, nearly taking him out. He could hear the next wave of men headed towards them, and his hand on Alec's shoulder was all that was keeping him steady. James Bond had never been the kind of man that would freely cry, even before the tragedy of his childhood began. But now he was biting back tears. 

"Q, this is lovely to listen to and all, but I need numbers and we need an exit strategy." 

_"I'm afraid the only way out is through, gentlemen. You have six coming up the western stairs, eight packed into the elevator, which I can disable. But you've also got the Big Boss and a team of twelve headed up the northern stairs. I can cut power and raise the alarms, though I doubt that'll deter them...I do believe this was a set-up, James."_

"Get me to kill you, and get sloppy because of the grief." 

_"You know what...I can't believe I'm going to do this...Room sixteen-eighty, go."_

"Q?" Alec and James seemed to ask in unison, headed down another hall for the room. 

_"The door lock will disengage, the couple inside only speak Polish, which neither of you are strong on. And what I'm doing now is completely illegal, so please, do try not to get caught."_

Alec and James got through the door only to get an eyeful of a very hairy, middle-aged Polish man in the missionary position with his wife. 

Their laptop plinked once before Q's voice came over the line, Q speaking to them in Polish as easily as he did with most other languages. _"James, Alec; shoot out the window and jump."_

"Q, we're sixteen floors up." James reminded him. 

_"Two floors down is a window-cleaner. It's not exactly a safety net, and I do hope you haven't gained weight, but it's better than the goons on your collective arses."_

James's breath caught on an approximation of a laugh, and his eyes fell to the discarded leather belt and bra laying in a heap near him. "Niestety." He managed, tossing the bra to Alec before they shot out the window together, the cables holding the cleaning trolley in place visible as the glass shattered out. With the belt between his palms and Alec using the bra to protect his own, James and Alec leapt for the cables, letting gravity do the work as the material they'd selected gave just enough traction to slow their fall. James grunted as he landed on his bad leg a little harder than Q or a medical professional may have liked. 

_"Okay, lads; here's the fun bit. Get out of there before they get their sights on you."_ James and Alec looked at each other, neither quite believing, but both obedient as hell. They managed to get the window trolley moving downwards, a little too fast for safety, really, but it was a bump at the end or lingering where they could easily be perforated with bullets. _"Alec, you need to run like hell for me. James's knee can't take the abuse, and having him down entirely is not an option at this point: James, I need you to find a tactical perch and pick off as many as you can while Alec is getting your way out. There are three cars that I can hack into and override the system of..."_ As Q muttered out his factors and probabilities in an absent way, the quarry was catching up to them, a short burst of bullets peppering the concrete around them as Alec and James reflexively pressed themselves tight into cover, hissing at the threat. 

"Q, a car would be lovely." James grit out. 

_"Um...there! The SUV just a building down. It's got gas and I can override the GPS so the police can't catch up. Go!"_

James took the weapons Alec thrust into his chest and leveled his shot upwards, taking out one of the shooters and sending him tumbling out of the broken window without the added benefit of a window cleaner's trolley two storeys down. James shifted, pressing his back to a column for extra stability and a view of anyone that would catch up to him from the ground, Alec slapping his shoulder in encouragement as James let loose with his cover fire, a rabid grin stretching his mouth as confusion reigned. 

_"I hope you don't take this the wrong way, 006, but I've arranged another room in another wing of the hotel for you. I have intentions to make up for lost time and that fucking flight."_

James laughed, "If you're talking about a repeat performance of that night after I got back from Kyoto, I have to vouch for him, Alec; you might not even want to be in the same building." 

_"I loathe you both, why the fuck am I even here?"_ Alec grit, amused but disgusted. 

"Because without us Eve wouldn't have a distraction?" 

_"Because I make your shiny toys and James keeps your arse in shape."_

_"Just going to hold that over my head for all eternity, are you?"_

_"006, if you feel you can best either of us on either account, please do feel free."_

James ducked reflexively as the car came roaring over the sidewalk, nearly taking out part of a garden box and rocking on its tyres. "Get in, loser; we're going spying."


	6. Never Feel Alone Again

The sight of Q in nothing but his glasses was a welcome one. 

James took in his palour, the subtle shake in his hands as he shifted to stand, and strode across the small room before Alec had even finished saying his goodnight, the door slamming closed behind him as he reached out with blazingly warm hands, taking Q's cold skin in a firm, supporting grip before he simply pulled him flush against him, picking him up and carrying him to the bed. 

"What the bloody hell..." 

"I-I had a slight reaction to something in the paralytic, James. That's all, I'm fine." Q told him in a weak rush, his cheeks blazing as he looked up at James through the fringe of his lashes and the framing of his glasses. James laid him out on the bed, pulling the covers up over them as he shirked off his shoes and started pushing off his coat, struggling to get out of his clothes only because he wanted to press warmth into Q even while he did it. 

"You knew." 

"I...I had to be ready for the possibility." Q contradicted. Q's hand squeezed his side softly, his eyes liquid and earnest, "Thank you for missing." 

James kissed him, because he was caught in such a whirl of turmoil and want that he couldn't do anything else. James pulled Q's lithe limbs around him, rolling so that Q's body was spread over his under the covers, his hand burying into Q's mop of hair and his lungs dragging in breath after breath of Q's scent of vanilla and gunoil; something he thought he'd never be able to smell again. "I thought...I thought I'd killed you." 

"You didn't. I knew...I knew you wouldn't. I trust you, James. Above anyone else." Q whispered, pliant and willing to let James indulge in every touch he needed to assure himself that Q was alive there with him. "I love you. I won't leave you so easily." 

James took Q's shaking hands, curling them against his chest in one of James's as he looked up at Q, studying features he knew better than his own. With his free hand, James trailed fingers down against the side of Q's throat, feeling his pulse and the jump of breath under his fingertips, the soft skin warming with his touch, though it wasn't nearly enough. Catching the corner of Q's mouth with his thumb, James looked him over as much as he could; the bruise on his cheek from the glorified paintball and the slight glaze in his eyes. 

"I've got some...vertigo, for lack of a better word. It's okay if I hold still." Q explained, and James heard the request behind the words, flipping them easily and pressing Q into the bed, settling himself beside him to watch the tan of his fingers running up Q's abdomen into the inky reaches of his tattooed ribcage. "I actually can't fly for now." Q giggled, though the mirth didn't quite reach the right notes. "James, I'm so sorry I did this to you." 

James searched himself for the rage; for the betrayal. But it wasn't there to be given. Laying beside Q was the only thing that mattered to him; and Q had never betrayed him at all. His obviscation had been to protect the world; it was the job. Had James known that he'd thought he might have to pull a gun on the boffin, James knew he wouldn't have agreed to helping to stop the bastard--and that realization (the lack of surprise that came with it) was the worrying part. "I've had issues with my inner ear before. I might be able to help." 

Q's worried, tight expression didn't budge, but his eyes were warmer, "I'd like to stop spinning." He agreed, voice high. 

"Close your eyes and find a position you aren't spinning in. I'll be right here." 

"I wish you'd hold me." Q whispered, his lashes wet as James carefully removed his specs. 

"I will, my darling Bastian. Close your eyes." James whispered back, pressing the words to Q's skin, "Find a way to sleep now." 

"I--" 

"We have all the rest of our lives. Together. For now, sleep and heal and let me watch over you til the sun rises and everything that would see us dead is six feet deep." 

Q reached for a kiss, slow and lingering, but sweeter than a meringue and just as teasing. He settled on one side, breathing deeply more to ease the nausea than he was to calm himself to sleep. James pulled the covers around them both, reaching over Q's side to take his hand, interlacing their fingers together as if they couldn't be torn apart. 

"I'm done losing you, Q. I can't do it again. I'll take you away from the world if I have to; you are mine, and I refuse to stand by, knowing the danger, and watching you walk into it over and over again. I'm done thinking you've died. I won't watch you throw yourself into the flames when I'm wearing the protective equipment." 

"So where does that leave us, James?"

"It leaves you with an old bull dog that the world has to go through to get to you." 

Q didn't comment on why it had been necessary for Alec to be prepared to fake his death in order to get James out without breaking cover. He didn't say that James was old, for as young as Q had been slowly making him with every passing day. He didn't mention that he'd had to place his faith in Alec because if things went to hell, he couldn't have counted on James to fight his way out as he would once have done. 

Q was quiet for so long James had thought he'd fallen off. James didn't so much as flinch as he spoke, though, the slow smile pulling over his features a match to the one riding Q's, "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."

James knew his response, closing his eyes with a happy sigh as his old, aching body relaxed in a wave with Q's body in bed next to him, "Q?" 

"Yes, James?" 

"Nothing," James squeezed Q's hand, "I just wanted to be sure of you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, my freaky darlings: that is the end of Afire Love. Thank you to each and every one of you for reading, commenting, and giving kudos. 
> 
> I love these boys, and I'm sad to see this world go, too, but something is telling me it's time. 
> 
> Feel free to leave fic requests, prompts, anything for me. My tumblr is wirewrappedlily.tumblr.com feel free to come talk to me. 
> 
> Infinite x's and o's, and I hope you'll stick around for whatever comes next.


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